Hacker "Guccifer" was caught Wednesday by prosecutors DIOCT, following a
search in Arad. He is suspected of having broken into email accounts of public
figures, including that of Director of SRI George Maior.

"In this case there is reasonable suspicion that during 2013, based on a
single criminal charge, the accused LML accessed repeatedly and against the
law, in violation of security measures, e-mail accounts belonging to public
figures in Romania, in order to take possession of confidential data in email,
then changed authentication passwords, thereby restricting user access to
computer data such as in email," DIOCT said in a press release.

"Subsequently, the accused disclosed the content of the correspondence in
public, and committed fraudulent damage in the online privacy and denigrating
public image of the persons concerned," said DIOCT.

The accused had been sentenced before for similar offenses, being able to
relapse after a suspended sentence, according to a source.

Specialist support was provided by the Romanian Intelligence Service and
the Special Operations Division, with assistance by the United States.

Marcel Lazarus Lehel, who used pseudonyms "Guccifer" and "Little Smoke" accessed
email accounts and the Facebook of public persons, including SRI director
George Maior, Colin Powell, Bush and Rockefeller family members and officials
of the Obama administration.

On February 8, 2012, hacker "Little Smoke" was sentenced to three years
imprisonment with suspended sentence by the Court of Sector 3.

Marcel Lazarus Lehel unlawfully accessed email accounts and those on the
Facebook belonging to employees of a public trust and media persons and then
made public the photos of their private discussions.

On August 19, 2011, Marcel Lazarus Lehel, aged 40, was arrested for committing
25 offenses for accessing computer systems, 25 crimes without law amending
and restricting access to data, 25 offenses of unauthorized transfer of data
from a computer system and 15 offenses of violating secrecy.

As a mode of operation, Lazarus Lehel accessed user accounts through restricted
systems for unauthorized copying of information, pictures and private
correspondence stored in the accounts of invaded parties the DIOCT prosecutors
have established.

He subsequently disclosed to the public content of the correspondence via
social networking, posting on personal accounts created specifically for
this purpose - "Little Smoke" and "pipes Theven" information and intelligence,
i.e., photos, emails and other private discussions held by the invaded parties'
social accounts and chat applications.

Among those affected by his actions "Guccifer" was actor Steve Martin and
John Dean, former advisor to President Richard Nixon, actress Mariel Hemingway,
three members of the House of Lords in the UK, Laura Manning Johnson, a former
CIA analyst, George Roche, former Secretary of the Air Force, and President
of MetLife (an insurance company).

According to some people the affected accounts were broken into from IP addresses
in Greece and Russia, wrote Thesmokinggun.com.

Hacker "Guccifer" claimed, in February 2013, theft of e-mail accounts belonging
to members of the Bush family, correspondence disclosing personal affairs.

In August 2013, "Guccifer" posted on his Facebook page a link to an e-mail
correspondence between former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and PSD
MEP Corina Cretu .

"A traitor to the fatherland," the hacker wrote on Powell's Facebook page,
attaching a link to a Google Drive emails received from Cretu Powell in
2010-2011, from his account on AOL.

In these emails, Cretu calls Powell, a native of Bronx, New York, "the love
of my life" and suggests that she is writing about an earlier romance, according
to TheSmokingGun.com.

Former U.S. Secretary of State had to provide clarification about his
relationship with Corina Cretu, after these revelations.

According to several publications, including The Daily Mail, Huffington Post,
New York Daily News and U.S. television station Fox News, the former general
answered questions from the website The Smoking Gun.com, saying that he did
nothing wrong to his wife - to whom he has been married 50 years - with Cretu
currently PSD MEP, after emails' very individual nature "were made public.

Powell said he Cretu met about ten years ago, while he was Secretary of State
for former President George W. Bush, and she was spokesperson for the Romanian
President Ion Iliescu . He noted that he met with her "once or twice" in
the last eight years.